Allentown Road

Gustav Grunewald is likely the most renowned artist from the Lehigh Valley region. Born on December 10, 1805 in the Moravian Herrnhuter Colony in Gnadau, Germany, Grunewald was trained at the Dresden Art Academy by acclaimed landscape artist Caspar David Friedrich. After a stint in the Prussian military and further artistic studies, he married in July of 1831 and moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in November. He was initially rejected as a member of the Moravian community in Bethlehem, and moved around between Bethlehem and Philadelphia until he was finally accepted in March of 1834.

In 1836, Grunewald was named the drawing master at the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, which became what is now Moravian University, and he held his first class in oil painting in 1844. In 1849, Grunewald purchased a lot at the corner of Goepp and Main Streets in Bethlehem and built his own house from the ground up. He also painted two murals on the plaster walls of Main Hall, the newly-erected girls' dormitory at the Seminary, which is still a female dorm at Moravian University today.

In April of 1865, Grunewald's wife died, causing him to visit Germany to be with his family. After a short trip (and a new wife) an illness in March of 1867 caused him to return to Germany permanently in July of that year. His position at the Seminary was filled by one of his students, Reuben Luckenbach. Grunewald resided in the Moravian Herrnhuter colony in Gnadenberg, Germany until his death on January 8, 1878, at the age of seventy-three.